Microscopes are well known for the human observance of biological processes and procedures. The invention of the microscope is variously accredited to Zacharias Janssen, a Dutch spectaclemaker, c.1590, and to Galileo, who announced his invention in 1610. Today's compound microscope is widely used in bacteriology, biology and medicine for the scrutiny of extremely miniscule objects such as bacteria, unicellular organisms, and the cells and tissue of plants and animals. Some compound microscopes are capable of resolving objects as small as 5000 Angstroms and some electron wave microscopes (e.g. scanning tunneling microscopes) are capable of viewing objects even as small as a single Angstrom. The microscope has been extremely important in the development of the biological sciences.
One area of biological science to benefit immensely from the microscope is the area of in vitro fertilization (IVF). Modem IVF has helped numerous women to achieve their dream of bearing children. Modern IVF is also used to help replicate endangered animal species as well as for animal husbandry in general.
Fraught with challenges, however, the procedures required of the IVF laboratory are extremely tedious, delicate, time and labor intensive, in addition to being costly due to the previous considerations. While being handled delicately, eggs are selected and injected with sperm. Heretofore, this task of selection and injection has been accomplished with two microscopes on different platforms, as explained below.
After being harvested, eggs are placed in Petri dishes and stored in incubators.
Later, the Petri dishes with the eggs are removed to heated platforms for observance beneath a stereoscopic dissecting microscope where they are stereoscopically examined, cleaned and selected. The Petri dishes with the eggs are then returned to the incubators and later transported to a different heated platform for observance beneath a compound microscope for injection with sperm.
The previous procedure is often perilous to the eggs. A major cause for failure is the requirement of continual handling and re-handling of the specimens. Each time a dish of eggs is handled and moved, the eggs are in imminent danger of damage, contamination or destruction, whether from changes in temperature or from inadvertent human clumsiness. The slightest damage to the eggs can result in a failed IVF.